


Portrait of a Killer

by DeathGlobalZone



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: Dark Thoughts, Death, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, I am impatient, Murder, Reader Has Powers, Reader-Insert, Seeing Dead People, Talking To Dead People, Violence, and update sporadically, gender neutral reader, graphic violence so be warned my good dudes, how fucked up is my mind: the game, i hope it gets fucked up, oh oh, question mark?????, reader has ferrets tho, reader is a photographer, reader is spooky, slowburn???, that good good anime protagonist backstory, thats cute, thats where i can have fun, theres also extreme apathy, theres killing, this is bound to get fucked up y'all, tragic backstories are sorta my thing, warning: author is kinda fucked up, what has become of my life, who knows - Freeform, why am i like this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2019-10-11 14:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17448551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathGlobalZone/pseuds/DeathGlobalZone
Summary: In several cultures, pictures are said to be able to capture a persons' soul, and any good photographer can bring life to any shot.But what if said photographer is surrounded by death?





	1. Chapter 1

**XxX**

            Heavy boots tromp carefully through the dark forest, stepping over loose twigs and dead leaves. You have a heavy camera bag slung over one shoulder and an adventurous glint in your eyes.

You are (Y/N) (L/N), local charity case for the small town college, and if someone asked your peers about you, they’d mostly get a confused “…Who?” You weren’t well known, you didn’t really have anyone you could consider a friend even within the arts department, and most people didn’t feel comfortable approaching you of their own volition. Those who _were_ familiar with you would describe you as quirky if they were being kind, and downright disturbing if they weren’t. Personally, you agreed that you had a certain thing about yourself that just didn’t vibe with most other people.

You tried to tell yourself that you didn’t care, but humans are social creatures, and you were reasonably certain you were human. But, hey, you had your ferrets, and that was good enough for you.

Currently, you were on the hunt for things to photograph to enter into a contest your college was holding. First place prize was a 22-inch Wacom Cintiq with the Adobe Suite already downloaded onto it, and you salivated over the opportunity to get a better computer and drawing tablet. With a double major in Art and Photography, and a minor in Creative Writing, that Cintiq was basically the Holy Grail for you. You were hoping to get a leg above the rest, who you had seen taking pictures around town, by getting creative with your subject matter.

AKA, the Spooky ForestTM that surrounded the majority of the small town that locals didn’t dare to enter. There were tales of tall, faceless men and masked killers inhabiting the woods, whispered stories of people walking in and disappearing. You, however, were looking for the abandoned hunting cabins and even an old cemetery that lay between the trees. You weren’t easily scared, desensitized to graphic violence thanks to horror movies, games, and your own life experience. You were tough, a squishy body belying strong muscles and incredible stamina, so if you did encounter anything unsavory, you were certain you could run fast enough to escape whatever was chasing you.

You were good at running.

It’s what you’ve been doing most of your life.

So far, you had taken a few uninspired pictures of trees and some nocturnal animals, but nothing really wowing. It was late, around ten or eleven at night, and the full moon was high in the sky. You came to a slight break in the trees, moonlight trickling between the leaves, and decided to snap a couple pictures from various angles.

_‘That’s a bit more like it,’_ you think to yourself as you scroll back over the photos.

You continued on in the dark, sometimes making a turn, just going where your soul told you, unafraid of getting lost. You had an uncanny ability to always find your way back, even in the most unlikely of situations.

Up ahead, you saw a halt in the trees, and start up into a light jog. When you broke into the clearing, you discover that it was the old cemetery you had heard about, filled with cracked and overgrown headstones and outlined in a tall and dilapidated spiked iron fence. As you inspected the perimeter, you snapped photos until you found a gap big enough for you to squeeze through. With some trouble, you enter the graveyard and have a fucking field day.

You take pictures of the gravestones, the crumbling mausoleum, close-ups on spider webs, and dead flowers in dusty glass vases; you lay down, climb the rickety fence, contorting your body to get the best possible angles. A few headstones even had candles melted on top of them, and you lit these and took pictures of those as well. You’d been there for maybe two or three hours before you were satisfied, and turned to leave… but hesitated when you got back to the gap that let you in.

“Thank you for letting me take these beautiful pictures, everyone!” you call out to the dead. “Next time, I’ll bring flowers!”

You were an odd duck, alright, and anyone watching would question why your wave seemed to be in response to someone else’s, even though there was no body there.

**XxX**

            Though you had taken many, _many_ pictures in the cemetery, you wanted to take a few more at different locations, so you continued wandering the darkened wood. Briefly, you stop at a small, overgrown cabin and take a few pictures of the exterior. You pause before leaving, wondering if you should risk entering the building, eventually shrugging and thinking _‘why the hell not’_.

            You take a few good snapshots of moonlight coming through the hole in the roof and the moonlit room, but really didn’t stay long- maybe twenty minutes at most. The most notable picture taken was when you decided your art was worth serious maiming or even death and climbed up through the hole in the roof and took a picture of the hole, the trees and moon in the background.

            It was nearing three in the morning that you came across another clearing, and right smack dab in the middle was an enormous tree, thick branches bare of leaves. That wasn’t to say that the foreboding tree was unadorned, however. Many nooses hung from the branches, some still sporting skeletons.

 “Holy _shit_ ,” you mutter, breaking the uncomfortably tranquil silence. “That’s fucking _wicked_.”  Excitement was at its peak as you paced the clearing, the only sounds were your footsteps and the clicking of your shutter. To get a good picture of a skeleton, you had to change the lens out, so you sit down on the damp grass.

Finally, you notice the absolute silence that surrounded you- not even a single cricket chirp. Before, there had been the usual forest sounds of bugs and foraging animals, but now there was only the wind whistling through the trees. Most would be unnerved. You remained unaffected, comfortable your oversized army jacket and jeans, hands steady and posture relaxed. Finally, you finished and snapped the picture, but your shutter-bug self wasn’t satisfied yet.

Then your adrenaline-junkie, dumbass self was like _“Climb the spoopy tree and take pictures from there.”_ And, naturally, you don’t have much self-control so you’re like _“Sure.”_

Stashing your camera safely in its bag, you take a running jump and grab the lowest hanging branch (which was still about two feet above your head). With some huffing and puffing, you climb up a little higher and take some close up shots. Then you hang upside-down from a branch, like a moron, to get just the right angle of a skeleton, its noose, some branches, and the moon. You arch your back, hold your breath, and-

“Hell yeah!” you holler triumphantly, looking back at the picture. “If this doesn’t win the contest, then I’m gonna murder the judges because they have no sense of taste.” You struggle to sit back up and once again put away your camera. As you climb down, your foot slips and you plummet with a yelp. Your breath gets knocked out of you and your back hurts like a bitch, but you are otherwise unharmed (thankfully, neither is your camera).

Slowly making your way back through the forest, you don’t notice the eyes watching you from afar, their owners hidden behind bushes.

“They got too close to the inner forest.” Said one, face covered by a white mask with stereotypically-feminine features painted on with black.

“Far too close,” agreed another, wearing a hood that shrouded his face except for the glowing red frowny-face.

“Sh-should we kill them?” asked the third, wearing orange-tinted goggles and a strange respirator-like mask over his mouth.

“They’re leaving,” the second says. “And they didn’t trespass into his domain.”

“Let them live,” the first agrees. “But they might be back again, we should be watchful.”

“What a-about the pictures?” the third isn’t arguing, just curious.

“Innocuous.” The first says. “There is nothing within them warranting our concern. Let’s report back.”

With that, the three melt back into the shadows, and you are none the wiser that your life could’ve been ended that night.

**XxX**

Getting back to your dorm, where you thankfully didn’t have a roommate, you yawn and crack your back. Your dorm was rather cozy, with a small kitchenette (complete with dishwasher, oven, and fridge) combined with a living room, a small closet that had your washer and dryer, and then a medium-sized bedroom and small bathroom. You were paying a little extra to get this room, but that didn’t bother you because that meant you could keep your odd hours- plus, you were here on almost a full ride, so while you weren’t rolling in money, you could afford this small luxury.

“Hello, my loves,” you coo to your ferrets, Cream and Sugar, who were playing in their large cage. Opening the cage, they excitedly snuff at your hand before climbing up and curling about your shoulders to mess with (H/C) locks. You give a delighted giggle, booting up your beat-up laptop and checking to see if you had any new commissions on your Fiverr. You had a few new ones, and that Gothic Lifestyle magazine had emailed you back about your portfolio and expressed interest in paying for more pictures.

You passed the rest of the early morning working on your pictures, art commissions, homework, and emailing the magazine back with questions, interspersed with breaks to play with your ferrets and stretch. When seven o’clock rolled around, you put Cream and Sugar back into their cage and took a nice steamy shower. Quickly completing your skin-care routine and picking out that days outfit, you decide on a chill makeup look for the day. Powder, contour, brow mascara, black kohl, mascara, highlight, and tinted Chap Stick. You get dressed in black cargo pants, a graphic tee, combat boots, and your army jacket and quickly style your hair as usual.

After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and feeding your ferrets, you put your sugary coffee into a travel mug, grab your backpack, and head off to your morning classes. After, you took a short power nap, ate lunch, went to your afternoon class, did a short workout routine, ate a snack, watched some Law & Order, did some more homework, ate another snack, replaced the water in the ferrets cage because you forgot to earlier, took another (longer) nap until about nine-thirty, where you then made dinner while watching the news.

“… these two rapists are currently on the run from the police.” Two mugshots are put up on screen.

“Yeah, they look like rapists.” You mutter to yourself.

The reporter continues. “They were last seen driving a gray 2001 Toyota Allion this afternoon, and their location is currently unknown. We ask everyone within a hundred mile radius of Capitol City in (State) to please use caution. If you have any leads that could lead to the capture of Oswald Foster and Aaron Tromp, please call-“She then went on to say the tip line number that was also on the bottom of the screen.

“Capitol City is like fifty or sixty miles from here, right?” you ask no one as you google it. “Yeah, it is. Shit. I’ll need to be more careful on my walks now.” Giving another back-crack, you eat your dinner and play again with Cream and Sugar. As they tussle on the couch, you do your daily stretches and get back to work on your contest entry. It takes a few hours to whittle down the hundreds of pictures you had taken to fifteen (including the shot from the tree, the rooftop, and a rather spectacular one of the mausoleum), the maximum amount you could put into your portfolio for the contest. Then, you set about to retouching them. At one in the morning, you take a break to stretch out your wrist and give it a break. While doing so, you watch some YouTube videos from the paranormal and true crime communities and do some laundry and other chores.

This level on organization and cleanliness was uncommon for those your age, but you’d been taking care of yourself for a long time and having a mostly-clean living space made you feel a bit more at ease.

At around four, you were done retouching the photos and make your way to the communications lab on campus. Laptop and empty portfolio under one arm, keys in hand, pocket knife and pepper spray in your pocket, and you’re ready to make the short walk to the communications building to print out the pictures. All entries to the contest were anonymous in order to eliminate judge tampering, and you wanted to avoid anyone from knowing which portfolio is yours, so you really hoped that no one was there.

Thankfully, the building was empty and you were able to print and assemble the portfolio in peace. Carefully following the directions for the contest, you tried coming up with a name. Your brainstorming was on a bit of notebook paper. All of your pictures featured the moon in some way, so you knew that ‘moon’ had to be in the name somewhere.

_Moonlit World_

_Forest by Moonlight_

_Moonlight Sonata_

_Moonlit Specters_

_Phantoms by Moonlight_

_The Moon and her Subjects_

_It’s High Moon_

_Moonlit Stroll_

_Moonlight Stroll_

After a long bout of thinking, you finally decide on Moonlit Specters. Using a label gun, you finish off your entry and place it into the designated box. _‘Three hours before the close,’_ you chuckle to yourself. _‘Nice.’_

You may have been a rather organized person, but that doesn’t mean you don’t also procrastinate.

Walking out into the crisp early morning air, you hum a jaunty tune when a shift in the atmospheric energies causes you to pause. Hand drifting towards your pepper spray, you look to the woods on your left, only to see a tall faceless man.

“So the rumors are true… there _is_ a faceless creature in these woods…” you observe, before shooting the figure a smile and friendly wave. “I’m just surprised others can see you.”

The man doesn’t respond, not that you expected him to, so you continue back to your dorm to maybe catch a few hours of sleep before your first class (thankfully, this one was at eleven and not eight-thirty). Others would probably be terrified of seeing a monster, but you’d honestly seen things more unnerving.

After all, many eldritch horrors roam the Void.


	2. Chapter Two

**XxX**

            A satchel full of herbs and flowers slung over your shoulder, you make your way back through the forest towards the graveyard. Everything looked different during the day, but isn’t that the case for most things?  Houses looked less menacing, people more approachable, Targets less subliminal, parks more like somewhere you’d take your dog and less like a kidnapping site. The forest was much the same, and you were surprised that people wouldn’t at least consider walking through during daylight hours, as the atmosphere the trees gave off was different. Not hostile, but not welcoming either. A good neutral place to hang out, if you didn’t mind the outdoors.

            It was a rather nice day outside, the air had a slight bite but the rays of the sun were warm on your skin with nary a cloud in sight. Inside, you wished for that witches weather you preferred- the overcast skies, the charged air, the wind whispering secrets of Mother Earth if only one would listen. Yes, while this sunshine weather of mid-autumn was lovely, you do prefer the shadows.

            At last, you reach the cemetery and once again wriggle through the opening in the fence. Finding a bare patch of earth, you settle yourself down and open the satchel to begin weaving the garlands. Lilies, spikenard, patchouli, chrysanthemums, mint, holly leaves, birch twigs, wormwood, mandrakes, and several other herbs and flowers found themselves woven into delicate ropes. All held significance in the funeral sense, honoring and mourning and guiding the dead to a peaceful afterlife. This was your way of thanking the dead here for allowing you to take your pictures.

            Speaking of pictures, in a few days you would learn the results of the competition, and admittedly you felt nervous. You knew your pictures were good, and you hoped that they would stand out amongst the others that all, you believed, showed basic pictures from around this small college town. So, while you were mostly honoring the dead with these fragrant garlands, you were also hoping to convince the universe to sway the judges in your favor.

            You’re there for most of the afternoon, humming along to music while you worked and placed the garlands around the graveyard. You also replaced the wilted flowers in each vase with fresh blooms, sliding the old ones into Ziploc bags to crush and turn into chalk and pastels, or perhaps just place around your apartment. Before leaving, you light some frankincense and cinnamon incense and whisper a small, non-denominational prayer that still somehow echoed.

            “May you all ascend to the rest and peace your souls deserve.”

            Twilight falls as you tread towards the dilapidated house and weave a housewarming wreath, made with jade and parsley, to string across the door. Shadows dance around you tauntingly as you make your way to your final destination- the Hanging Tree, as you called it.

            Reason why should be obvious.

            With fingers stained green, you weave funeral crowns for the skeletons that danced and cackled in the breeze. This time climbing the tree, you were much more careful, disinclined to take another fall from this height. Nestled in the branches, you feel a sense of peace wash over you- the beautifully macabre scenery, the wind that had the scent of rain, the blood-red color of the sunset being overtaken by black thunderclouds, and the deepening shadows had you breathing deeply in contentment.

            A hefty grunt leaves your throat upon landing, feet tingling slightly and you grimace until the pins and needles leave. Night has descended quite heavily by now, but still you don’t pull out your flashlight- something was telling you not to, and you decided to listen as you often did. After walking through the gloom for a good while, you see the flickering of firelight through the trees. Approaching further, you spy two men and a young girl sitting around the campfire- the men seemed wary, and the girl seemed scared.

            There was something wrong.

            Making sure to stay hidden, you carefully make your way around the perimeter of the small clearing to try and get a better view. Shifting from your feet to your stomach, you army crawl under a bush about three yards away from the fire, eyes widening in recognition as their faces finally come into focus. Oswald Foster. Aaron Tromp. And a terrified little girl, pale face encrusted with dirt and dried blood, hands and ankles tied together.

            Unwillingly, you’re transported back to _that_ time.

            _“(Y/N)? (Y/N)!” she cries. “Let me go! Please!”_

_“Holly!” you try to shout, but your throat is closed. “I’m coming!”_

_Please…_

_I’m… coming…_

You shake your head to dislodge the memories, and you acquire a new goal.

            Save the girl.

            Oswald pokes at the fire and looks around the clearing. “Something ain’t right about this forest, Aaron. It’s too quiet.”

            “You’re just being paranoid, man. The locals never come in here, especially never this deep. I reckon we’ll be nice and safe while we have our fun.” He flashes a sick grin at the little girl. “You really shouldn’t’a wandered into the forest by yourself, girlie.”

            The child stays quiet but for a few soft sobs.

            “I still say its unnatural- maybe the locals are right to stay outta here.”

            “Oh, hush. Yer starting to sound like a pussy.”

            “Shut up!” Oswald said, voice echoing the deep scowl on his greasy face. “The only pussy we’re gonna hear tonight is hers.” The criminals start laughing, and the girl heaves out a much louder sob.

            You’ve acquired a new goal.

            Save the girl.

            Kill the men.

            This time, you wouldn’t fail.

            After carefully dislodging yourself, you search around for a decent sized rock and move to a better position to grab the girl. With a kiss for the rock and a prayer to the Elder Beings, you yeet that rock as hard and as far as possible. It thunks against a tree on the far side of the clearing and falls into the bushes, making a nice noise.

            “Jesus fucking Christ!” Oswald jumps to his feet and looks off into the woods. “What the fuck was that?”

            “Pro’lly just a rabbit or something, man,” Aaron says, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette. “You gotta chill. Want a smoke?”

            Oswald sighs and runs his hand over his bare scalp. “Yeah, sure.”

            _‘Fuck,’_ you think. _‘What should I do?... Use your powers, duh. You idiot.’_ After a moment, you’re again across the clearing and you shake your head to help clear the slight fog. This time, whilst making a lot of noise, you approach the clearing again and even enter it, acting lost and confused. “Hey, I got lost, do y’all happen to…” You act as though you’d never seen the tableau in front of you and gasp, eyes deliberately drifting to the little girl. You back up one step, then two before bolting into the forest, the two men shouting as they run after you.

            “Fucker, I thought you said no one came into this goddamn forest!”

            “No one _does_!”

            “Coulda fuckin’ fooled me!”

            The voices were slowly fading behind you, and you blip back to the clearing. Approaching the girl, you pull out your pocket knife and start cutting off her restraints. She starts sobbing and thrashing, and you have to stop lest you hurt her further. “Hey, hey, shhh sh sh shhh, it’s okay. I’m (Y/N), I’m gonna get you home but we need to hurry.” She stills, and watches you with tearful green eyes as you finish. “Okay, there you go. How are your wrists? Ankles? Do they hurt?”

            “Y-yeah,” she whispers. “They hurt a lot.”

            “Wish I had advil. What’s your name, sweetie? How old are you?” You gently brush her hair back from her face, letting old instincts take over. Shelter. Protect. Comfort.

            “My na-name’s Sally. I’m nine.” She says, slowly relaxing in your company.

            “It’s nice to meet you, Sally, though I wish it wasn’t… here. I’m (Y/N), and I’m nineteen.” You smile gently and help her stand up with you. When she nearly falls, you go ahead and settle her on your back. “Where do you live?”

            “In the forest,” comes her simple reply, and you huff a breath in surprise. “We live deeper in.”

            “Alrighty,” you say, starting to walk. “Think you can direct me?”

            “Yeah!” Seems that she’s cheered up quite a bit. You don’t think that’s normal, but you’d ponder further about that later.

            “What th- Aaron, get your ass over here!”

            “Shit,” you say with vitriol before again taking off at a run, but this time you are at a disadvantage with the extra weight of Sally on your back. Her small fists were digging into your throat with an uncomfortable pressure, making it hard to breathe, but you manage to push through it. You can hear Aaron and Oswald chasing after you, crashing through the foliage with all the grace of a monster truck as they begin to catch up.

            …

            Is that your feet pounding, or is that your heart?

            Your body crashes to the ground when you trip, scraping up the left side of your face.

            “(Y/N), are you okay?” Sally says as she scrambles off your shoulders to kneel worriedly at your side.

            “I’m fine, I’m fine,” you say in a harsh breath, quickly standing back up and ignoring the stinging of your cheek. “Hop back on, sweets, but this time grab around my chest, under my arms. Hurry!” With Sally resituated on your back, you continue running. In your own attempts to throw them off your tail, you zigzag and turn in seemingly random directions, once dodging behind a large tree and briefly waiting for them to pass. The two of you are relatively silent for a few minutes, the only sounds are your joined labored breathing and the pounding of your feet in those old army boots, the shouts of the men getting further and further behind you. This is why you were horribly surprised when Sally whispers in your ear.

            “Turn left!”

            “Got it.”

            Sharply turning in said direction, you stop after another few minutes of running, the men no longer within hearing range. Sally slips off your back as you catch your breath, leaning back against a tree. Thank the Elder Beings for being an endurance runner.

            “How much farther?” you ask, sinking down to the leaf-covered forest floor.

            “Another mile or two… I think…” Sally says, uncertainly. You flash her a smile, still getting your breathing under control and lean your head back against the solid oak trunk.

            “Just let me catch my breath, and we can keep going.” With that and a few minutes of quiet, you stand back up and crack your back, feeling the muscles in your legs twinge and protest every movement. Ignoring them, you turn to Sally. “Do you think you can walk now?” After a couple of careful steps, she nods and takes your hand in her much smaller one, and the two of you continue on at a much more sedate pace. As the minutes tick by, you start to talk to fill the silence.

            “Do you have any pets? I have two ferrets named Cream and Sugar.”

            Sally visibly brightens at this. “Yeah! We have a doggie named Smile and a kitty named Grinny, though they both tend to wander around, and Smile mostly stays with Jeff…” she pouts lightly towards the end of her sentence.

           “Animals certainly do play favorites,” you say in agreement, chuckling slightly. “And is Jeff your older brother or something?”

           “Mmhm! There’s a whole lotta us, and our house is real big!” She stretches out her arms to emphasize her point. “We all have our own rooms, and mines all pink!”

           “That sounds absolutely wonderful.” You smile softly and look forward, and the two of you return to quiet.

           “What about you?”

           “Hm?” you’re torn out of your thoughtless reverie and glance down at the little girl.

           “Do you have any sisters or brothers?”

           Your smile turns sad before dropping near completely. “Yeah… yeah, I did. I had a little sister named Holly.”

           Sally caught on to the past tense. “Had? What happened to her?”

           Your throat tightens, but you force yourself to focus on the present. “She’s… gone.” Was Sally familiar with death? You didn’t want to introduce it to her before her family could.

           “Oh.” It seems she was. “Well, she’s not gone completely, right? Because you remember her.”

           A shocked and sad chuckles breaks from your throat, and you nod. “You’re wise beyond your years, Sally.”

           “Thank you!”

           Before you could fall back into thoughtlessness, a shout comes from behind you.

           “Oswald, I found ‘em!”

           “Fuck!” you curse vehemently, holding Sally under one arm and leaning into a full-on sprint. You have to stop so she can jump on your back, taking precious seconds away from your escape. Unfortunately, your legs don’t want to work very well anymore and you keep stumbling. “Sally, how close are we?”

           “I- I don’t know, I don’t know!” she cries, and suddenly you are struck with a stupidly risky plan, but it was a plan nevertheless.

           “What does it look like?”

           “U-uh, u-hm- The walls a-are brick, pai-nted white! The roof is black!”

           “Good, what else?”

           “There’s a front porch with a metal fence around it, and-and columns!”

           “Perfect!” you’re panting heavily. “Now close your eyes, and keep thinking of your house! And, and don’t open your eyes until I tell you to, and don’t let go!”

           “Don’t let go?” she practically screams in your ear.

           “Exactly, don’t let go!” With that, you do your best to picture the house as well, and blip back into the Void. This trip takes longer for you, as you have to look around to try and find the right path out, but the Void dances and tempts you to stay. After a wild minute, you see the house and exit the Void. “Okay, Sally, you can open your eyes now.”

           The two of you had ported to just outside a clearing, in the middle of which was a house. Well, less like a house and more like a manor, with ghost-white brick walls, a dark wood porch surrounded by an intricate iron fence, with imposing white columns supporting the pitch-black tiled roof. The lights were on, and there was panicked movement on the other side of the window. “How…?” Sally sobs, still riding the roller coaster of emotions the whole ordeal had brought her.

           “Magic, sweets,” you give her a relieved smile and wink, thankful that the both of you had made it out in one piece. You had a throbbing headache; they were always worse when you took someone else with you. “Run on home, I’m sure your family is worried about you.”

           “O-okay,” her little bare feet swiftly crunch through the leaves on the floor and across the expanse of ground that separated the manor from the forest, going faster and faster the closer she got to the door. The young girl didn’t turn around in her excitement to be home, but even if she did she wouldn’t know where you’d gone.

           Aaron and Oswald were looking around stupidly a mile behind you, searching for where you’d gone. You blipped back into existence right between them and stabbed Aaron in the back with your knife. They were talking, probably, but your headache refused to let you hear a single word. Aaron probably screamed, but you couldn’t hear that either. Slashing Oswald’s throat in the same movement, you dragged the both of them into the Void with you and let go.

           The denizens deserved a snack for your safe passage.

           With your last bit of energy, you blipped back into your apartment and violently threw up into the toilet before passing out on the linoleum floor, thankful for its coolness. You’d for sure be sore when you woke up.

 

**OMAKE**

           “No, no, really!” Sally insists, dragging Slenderman out the front door. “They saved me, and they can… leave one place and turn up somewhere else really fast!”

           “They can… teleport?”

           “Yeah, yeah! They’re really nice, but they tripped and hurt their face so it needs to be bandaged, they should be right…” Sally stares off into the trees, looking for your silhouette. “Here… Why didn’t they stay?”

           “Who knows, Sally?” Slenderman soothes. “Maybe they went home.”

           “But… I never got to thank them!” Sally says in that genuine, childish sadness. “I wanted to show them Mr. Death! I wanted to play with my dolls with them…”

           “Maybe you’ll see them again,” Slenderman gently guides the young ghost back inside and shuts the door, mind racing. How many strange humans could reside in one small town. “Would you like some hot chocolate?”

           “… Can Mr. D have some too?”

           “Of course.”

           “Yay!”

**Author's Note:**

> I should be working on my other stories, I know, but my muses are fickle and like to hide. Besides. I might as well put out content that I'd want to read myself.
> 
> Please consider supporting me on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/RileyGrimm)


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